UK Energy news from around the web

Main Menu

UK Renewable Energy Growth in 2012

The UK government released a report in March which states that in 2012, 11.3% of the country’s electricity came from renewables, up from 9.4% in 2011. Overall, renewable electricity generation increased 20% — from 34.4 TWh in 2011 to 41.1 TWh in 2012 — and capacity increased 26% — from 12.3 GW to 15.5 GW.

The renewable energy generation split in 2012 was as such:

Bioenergy — 37%

Onshore wind — 29%

Offshore wind — 18%

Hydro — 13%

Solar PV — 3.2%

Renewable energy capacity is split as follows;

Onshore wind- 38%

Bioenergy- 21%

Offshore wind- 19%

Hydro- 11%

Solar PV- 11%

(Generation is the amount of electricity a generator produces over a specific period of time whereas capacity is the maximum electric output a generator can produce under specific conditions)

The biggest percentage increase comes from Solar PV, as it’s capacity rose by 70% on 2011 levels. You can see in the chart below that it is responsible for the majority of new feed-in-tariff capacity.

“Whilst the majority (89 per cent) of the increase in FiT installations in 2012 Q4 was due to sub-4 kW retrofitted schemes, these contributed less than half of the increase in capacity terms; a further 21 per cent of the increase in capacity was from solar PV schemes in the 10-50 kW range, with 1,088 schemes, totalling 35 MW, being confirmed on FiTs during the quarter.”- UK Gov report